the judge of the Court of Acquittal remarked that it
was one of the most ghastly crimes that he had ever been called upon to
explain away.

At this, my attorney rose and said:

"May it please your Honor, crimes are ghastly or agreeable only by
comparison. If you were familiar with the details of my client's
previous murder of his uncle you would discern in his later offense (if
offense it may be called) something in the nature of tender forbearance
and filial consideration for the feelings of the victim. The appalling
ferocity of the former assassination was indeed inconsistent with any
hypothesis but that of guilt; and had it not been for the fact that the
honorable judge before whom he was tried was the president of a life
insurance company that took risks on hanging, and in which my client
held a policy, it is hard to see how he could decently have been
acquitted. If your Honor would like to hear about it for instruction and
guidance of your Honor's mind, this unfortunate man, my client, will
consent to give himself the pain of relating it under oath."

The district attorney said: "Your Honor, I object. Such a statement
would be in the nature of evidence, and the testimony in this case is
closed. The prisoner's statement should have been introduced three years
ago, in the spring of 1881."

"In a statutory sense," said the judge, "you are right, and in the Court
of Objections and Technicalities you would get a ruling in your favor.
But not in a Court of Acquittal. The objection is overruled."

"I except," said the district attorney.

"You cannot do that," the judge said. "I must remind you that in order
to take an exception you must first get this case transferred for a time
to the Court of Exceptions on a formal motion duly supported by
affidavits. A motion to that effect by your predecessor in office was
denied by me during the first year of this trial. Mr. Clerk, swear the
prisoner."

The customary oath having been administered, I made the following
statement, which impressed the judge with so strong a sense of the
comparative triviality of the offense for which I was on trial that he
made no further search for mitigating circumstances, but simply
instructed the jury to acquit, and I left the court, without a stain
upon my reputation:

"I was born in 1856 in Kalamakee, Mich., of honest and reputable
parents, one of whom Heaven has mercifully spared to comfort me in my
later years. In 1867 the family came